My life of passion

To be more accurate my life has consisted of a series of passions. Putting them roughly in date order, my first love was sailing model yachts on the pond in my father’s back garden. It was a large pond by garden standards, probably thirty feet or so in diameter. It had been a natural dew pond used by horses that grazed in the field that my father bought to build his house.

To some extent it was landscaped, with a path halfway round it, that enabled a small boy to launch his free sailing model sailing boat. I have a photograph of myself in school cap and raincoat, carrying a bamboo cane, sailing my boat on this pond. I suppose I must have been about ten. This was an embryo passion, had I known it at the time.

I went on to play with a friend’s toy trains. His father had a large house with a billiard room. The train set was laid out on the table and while the group who were gathered there drove trains as fast as possible around the outside track, I was happy shunting goods wagons on my own. I couldn’t see the point of crashing the locomotive into model cars abandoned on the level crossing.

My grandfather lived with us during this period and he initiated me into the secrets of lead casting, so that I could make my own lead soldiers, such toys being otherwise unavailable in war time.

At secondary school I became interested in naval architecture and with the help of one of the masters taught myself how to draw up lines for sailing boats and using my lead casting ability, produce the lead keel necessary. For some reason the only wood available for model making was balsa and I was able to build several of my designs from this soft material. But I never could master the art of sail making and I would bully my mother to make me sails out of old bed sheets.

I used to race these boats with my friends on a pond in Stoke Park in Guildford and we’d dream of the day when someone would invent a reliable way of controlling the course of these craft.

At about this time my parents felt that I was not developing any social skills and suggested that I join a club. I was more or less pushed into becoming a member of the Bookham Home Guard Rifle club, which was then accepting civilian members. I took to the shooting side of the club like a duck to water, eventually becoming a County class rifle shot. This particular passion continued for about forty years. In the future two of my children were to grow up into it and both in turn became members of Surrey junior rifle teams.

Many years later I had found myself a job, married and produced three lovely daughters.

From now on many of my hobbies and passions became intertwined, being carried on as time and enthusiasm allowed.

When the children were aged five or so, I got myself into serious trouble with my wife, when I bought a shop soiled cine camera very cheaply. It cost twenty five pounds that we couldn’t really afford. However she did come round eventually and joined me in wishing that we could have had ‘baby on the lawn’ movies, even though we were well provided with an album full of still photographs.

Movies now became another passion and I recorded all my holidays. Later on my father gave me his old tape recorder with the proviso that I added sound tracks to my holidays after the films had been edited.

I rode a motor bike, for 13 years adding a sidecar as the kids turned up. Later on, fitting three children into the sidecar with their mother became impossible and I bought my first car. A very second hand Volkswagen Beetle! The children in turn had their own passions, one of them being to keep guinea pigs. We learned the hard way that these breed very quickly. Of course they were all named and the sight of the pig called ‘Uncle’ producing several small piglets made it essential that we learned how to sex these small animals and alter Uncle’s name to ‘Aunty’.

The sight of our family arriving at my father’s seaside cottage in the Beetle and unloading two adults, three children and a cage full of guinea pigs, had to be seen to be believed. There was a home made canoe on the roof rack, as well as an old fire guard to be used as the run for the animals. The entire luggage for a stay of three weeks or so was also packed in somehow.

After the children left home and went on to produce eight grandchildren between them, my wife and I continued walking the countryside, by then using a video recorder to assist our memories. The beetle had long been superseded by several estate cars as required, to accommodate the growing kids.

One of my sons in law happened to be a kit car enthusiast and a chance question, “what does a hundred miles an hour and more than thirty miles to the gallon?” produced the answer, “a Midas.” So I bought the kit and built one. It was very small, really only a two seater and my wife hated it. I still had a Volkswagen Golf that alternated with the Midas in my drive work, while for holidays we used the Golf.

This started off my next passion for kit cars. Just before I retired I built my ‘retirement car.’ The Quantum was a proper four seat coupe, using all the interior from a mark two Ford Fiesta, so it looked very professional inside, as well as out. This car was used for our holidays after I retired, until my wife died.

At this point I lost interest in driving and only used the Quantum as transport for my model yachts. By now these yachts were radio controlled and capable of racing in fleets of twenty boats or so. I had built a dozen or so of this type, some of them pure racers built from kits, while others I made from scratch to different designs. After one poor effort at making my own sails, I always used a professional model sail maker.

Growing older has many problems and one of them for me is unsteadiness on my feet. This is not a good idea when bending down to launch or retrieve, a model yacht from the water. So I gave up yachting and as a result the need to drive.

One last passion which doesn’t really fit into any chronological order was my research and building of the 1802 Charlotte Dundas, an early boat that purported to be the first practical steam boat ever used in this country. This labour of love started in 1978 and was finally completed in 2001. Model engineering had been an interest and my working background as a draughtsman, enabled me research and draw up a set of plans before making every part of the boat from scrap material. Even moving model crew members were made by me, but I failed in the clothing department and my eldest daughter dressed the four inch high men for me.

So here I am! Having gone full circle in my passions, I’m now working on plans to build a shunting yard for small model trains. This time the layout will be in my loft. I can’t afford a billiard table!